February 24, 2009

At various points I've posted pictures of the outside of the Royal Ontario Museum, because its giant crystal extension is such a striking feature of the streetscape near me. But I hadn't yet made it inside the place until late last week, when my mom and one of her friends came to visit me. We had a generally good touristy time, riding streetcars all over the place, in part to get out of the snow and cold, but also to see different neighborhoods. We ate well, too, from the good little pub/restaurant near me to Chinese on Dundas to Italian on College. But seeing the inside of the ROM was especially fun, since it's something I've meant to do for so long.

It was interesting to see the way the shape of the crystal created odd visions of the outside world. There was a lot of disappointment with the crystal because it's not very crystaline from the outside--people expected lots of glass, and it ended up having much more metal (?) cladding on it. Apparently it still has too much glass, and so too much light, for some of the collections. But from the inside the mixture of glass and solids actually makes kind of an interesting space.

I quite liked this camel (and his partner) from the China collection.

And for some reason I became enthralled by the shadows cast by the dinosaurs. The odd, bony, graceful curves of shadows on ceilings and walls.

When I knit the hat, I realized that because this lace pattern had both strong ribbing tendencies and the possibility of being blocked out well, a hat knit out of it could have two entire personalities: a close-fitting cap, or a looser beret/tam.

After finishing row 40, continue to knit in reverse stockinette (purl every stitch), decreasing one stitch every row (p2tog) above the final k2tog, switching to dpn, 2 circular needles, or magic loop when needed.

At 6 stitches, break off yarn, thread through remaining stitches, and tie off tightly.

Weave in ends.

Like this, the hat is a fairly tight cap: hat one!

Alternatively, wash and stretch over a dinner plate to block out into a tam. When dry, hat two!

February 13, 2009

February 08, 2009

And I'm uninspired by my knitting right now (though I've finished a few little things, nothing makes me want to write about it). And I finally caved and joined facebook, and I find that that's a surprisingly strong outlet for minor bits of self-expression that might otherwise have ended here.

And the weather's been ugly. It's actually fairly warm right now (comparatively), and the sun was shining today. But there's such an overabundance of old grey snow at the moment that the nice feel of the day doesn't correlate to anything much worth photographing.

So, I'm stuck with only Ziti for photographic inspiration.

Fortunately, he delivers.

He's being an obstacle not to knitting, or to yoga, as in previous entries, but to work. This is not ideal, given that whole title "it's been busy" thing.

If he were just sitting there that might not be worthy of a photograph, despite the annoying factor. But that's only one thing--look at his paws. And his tail. No, really, look closely.

They're all tucked together neatly, like... I don't know, origami. No, that makes no sense. Something folded and tucked in on itself. A napkin!